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About six years
ago, after an obsessive, multi-year engagement with history and
philosophy, I struggled with the following question: Is it possible to
reduce the vast range of humankind's metaphysical responses down to a few
distilled outlooks that have shaped (and continue to shape) human culture ?
An elementary classification has been in vogue at least since Herodotus:
the East and the West, but it is clearly untenable in
light of the internal diversity of both the East and the West. Is there a
better classification, I wondered, that is at once simple, non-geographic,
and more comprehensive ?
I was well aware
of the danger of oversimplification. Even accomplished scholars are prone
to finding seemingly profound but ultimately specious patterns in human
affairs. Still, in the summer of 2000, amid the stacks of Stanford's Green
library, I devised a classification that has withstood my own scrutiny
over time (it can surely be fine tuned). All of our metaphysical
knowledge, I concluded then, is arrived at via one of these three distinct
outlooks: Orthodox, Suprarational, Rational.
1.
Orthodox:
These usually
involve lots of
norms, observances,
dogma, and rituals.
Humans have embraced
such belief systems
with a dismaying
alacrity, preferring
numbing and singular
interpretations of
reality to examined
belief.
a.
Revealed
orthodoxies:
These arise at
specific moments in
history, marked by
the exclusive words
of a god or prophet,
and universal in
scope. Examples
include monotheisms
like Judaism,
Christianity, and
Islam, and the
nearly extinct one
of ancient Persia:
Zoroastrianism. A
secular example here
would be communism.
b.
Traditional
orthodoxies:
Norms, dogma, and
rituals accumulate
here organically
from sources such as
social organization,
fear/reverence of
nature, and
traditional myths.
There is usually no
single person,
deity, or central
text at its core.
Examples include
Brahmanism in south
Asia (i.e., the
oldest part of
Hinduism with its
three pillars:
caste, rituals,
priests), the Shinto
in Japan, and the
beliefs and
practices of many
ancient,
pre-historic
peoples.
2.
Suprarational:
Inner directed
mystical-spiritual
traditions, such as
those that have long
flourished in Islam
(Sufism) and in
Hinduism (Bhakti).
To its common
adherents, "the
physical world ...
so real and absolute
and unique [to
everyone else],
seems ... one way of
living among many
others; in short, a
small, chaotic,
agitated, and rather
painful frontier on
the margin of
immense continents
which lie behind
unexplored."
A suprarational
outlook does not
engender ideas like
personal ambition,
competition,
science, or
democracy. Instead,
it furthers
tolerance and
pacifism, often
alongside a gentle,
dreamy, fatalistic
detachment from the
world, admixed with
a devotional piety
and pervasive
superstition.
3.
Rational:
Predominantly centered on human life in this world and reliant on the
powers of reasoning, initiative, and understanding.
a.
Self-asserting
individualism:
This tends to heighten both the good and the evil in people, as evidenced
in Classical Greece and the modern West. On one hand, it makes possible
things like science, human rights, democracy, and scholarship; on the
other hand, driven by inflated egos and competitive self-advancement, it
furthers a brash and aggressive herd mentality. People then imitate each
other "in freedom", and reason merely serves self-centered thought and
action.
b.
Self-denying
individualism:
Here the emphasis is on mental tranquility through self-awareness and
reining in selfish desire. It forgoes many benefits of 3(a) while reducing
its ills. Never with a mass following, this has retained its appeal as a
personal philosophy to many. Examples include the Stoics of Hellenistic
Greece and Rome, and the teachings of the Buddha, which, in derivative
forms, survive in parts of Asia.
Note that in
approaching
metaphysical
questions, few in
the world can adopt
just one outlook;
people and cultures
generally exhibit an
ever-changing,
seemingly
contradictory mix of
all three.
(I first
presented this
classification in my
essay
On Early Islam,
which also contains
the larger context
for it.)
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